Dunn dump in Rensselaer drawing legal scrutiny - Times Union

A Cayuga County law firm is soliciting a potential class action lawsuit by neighbors outside of the Dunn construction and demolition debris landfill in Rensselaer. There have been complaints of recurring foul odors from the dump. (Will Waldron/Times Union archives) less

A Cayuga County law firm is soliciting a potential class action lawsuit by neighbors outside of the Dunn construction and demolition debris landfill in Rensselaer. There have been complaints of recurring foul ... more
Photo: Will Waldron

Photo: Will Waldron

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Caption

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A Cayuga County law firm is soliciting a potential class action lawsuit by neighbors outside of the Dunn construction and demolition debris landfill in Rensselaer. There have been complaints of recurring foul odors from the dump. (Will Waldron/Times Union archives) less

Photo: Will Waldron

Rensselaer

A major construction and demolition debris dump continues to draw legal scrutiny, with a central New York law firm investigating a potential class action lawsuit.

Residents around the dump were solicited last week by a Cayuga County law firm that is considering a class action lawsuit over chronic odors from S.A. Dunn & Co. landfill off Partition Street. The dump drew a state inspector last month because of the recurring stink.

Jan Smolak, an attorney with Michael & Smolak, of Auburn, wrote in a Jan. 8 letter to dump neighbors that his firm is "currently investigating filing a class action lawsuit against the Dunn landfill on behalf of residents who believe the landfill is emitting foul odors into the neighborhood."

Smolak's letter indicated his firm was affiliating with a Detroit firm, Liddle & Dubin, that has won previous class action lawsuits involving landfill odors. Attempts to reach Smolak for comment were not successful.

In July 2018, the Liddle & Dunn law firm obtained a $1.9 million settlement for residents around a dump in Dayton, Ohio. And in September 2017, the firm obtained a $750,000 settlement for a dump in Salem, Michigan.

After sending the inspector to the Dunn facility in response to odor complaints by neighbors, the state Department of Environmental Conservation "continues to closely monitor this facility, including regular site inspections, to ensure operators are meeting permit conditions and the strict terms of recent enforcement actions," according to an agency statement.

"DEC is also working with Dunn to develop an odor mitigation plan at this facility, as well as to respond to odor complaints through routine odor inspections at the facility and surrounding neighborhoods," the statement continued.

Also, the Hudson Mohawk Chapter of the Sierra Club has obtained a lawyer to look into the Dunn landfill on behalf of residents and advise on a potential legal response.

The not-for-profit environmental group hired Albany lawyer John Barone to review the 2012 permit issued by DEC for the Dunn landfill.

A member of the Albany law firm of Tooher and Barone, Barone is a former board member of Saratoga PLAN, a not-for-profit environmental advocacy group in Saratoga County.

Neighbors have complained about dozens of large tractor-trailer trucks that deliver loads to the Dunn dump during weekdays, and question a 2012 state permit that allows up to 100 such vehicles daily on Partition Street, which is the only way into and out of the dump.

Since the dump opened in 2015, more than 50,000 trucks from several states have used the facility to dump hundreds of thousands of tons of debris.

The dump can legally accept concrete, sheetrock, asphalt, masonry, roofing materials, plumbing fixtures, insulation (but not asbestos), empty buckets, wood, plastics and "pulverized waste." It cannot legally accept regular household garbage or hazardous waste.

One of the dump's closest neighbors is the Rensselaer Junior-Senior High School, which has more than 1,000 students.

District Superintendent Joseph Kardash said there have been dump odors on school property and "it has not been pleasant."

He said the district routinely reports such incidents to the dump's management "like they have asked us to do."

Kardash said he has "treated the dump like a learning experience. We have taken students over to see the operation."

At this point, it would be very difficult to move the dump or the school," he added.

New athletic fields next to the high school are being built by Wilton-based Kubricky Construction, where former Dunn mine owner Michael Dunn is now president. According to a February 2018 DEC notice, Kubricky is subcontracted to operate the Dunn facility.

In 2015, Dunn sold the 99-acre property, which was a sand and gravel mine, to Waste Connections, a Texas-based corporation that is one of the nation's largest waste haulers.

As part of the $30 million sale, which also included a dump in Texas, Dunn received a $3 million bonus for obtaining the state and city agreements and permits necessary for the new dump, according to a report that Waste Connections filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2016.

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